By The Wire Staff
Srinagar: The State Investigation Agency (SIA) of Jammu and Kashmir Police raided the office of Kashmir Times in Jammu on Thursday (November 20), in what the outlet’s owners have termed as an “attempt to silence independent media”.
The police raid was condemned by the Committee to Protect Journalists, along with other media defenders and some political groups. It comes at a time when the newspaper’s print edition has largely ceased to exist, though it had scaled up its digital content production in recent months.
In a statement, the counter terrorism agency said that the media outlet’s office on Residency Road in Jammu was raided in connection with a case filed for “their involvement in criminal conspiracy with secessionist and other anti-national entities operating within and outside Jammu & Kashmir”.
However, the SIA statement didn’t specify the details of the FIR.
The agency said that Kashmir Times “was allegedly disseminating terrorist and secessionist ideology, spreading inflammatory, fabricated and false narratives, attempting to radicalise the youth of Jammu & Kashmir, inciting disaffection and separatist sentiments, disturbing peace and public order, and challenging the sovereignty and territorial integrity of India through print and digital content”.
However, Anuradha Bhasin, the executive editor of the daily, who has been reportedly named in the FIR, alleged that they were being targeted for “speaking truth to power”.
The outlet is run by Bhasin and her husband Prabodh Jamwal, also a senior editor there, and both are based out of the country. The agency said that it also carried out searches at the house of Jamwal, identifying him as the owner of the media outlet.
In a joint statement, they said that the SIA’s allegations were “designed to intimidate, to delegitimize, and ultimately to silence… independent media” in Jammu and Kashmir.
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